‘Intolerable situation’ as outbreaks increase at Niagara LTC homes

Cheryl Corbeil says she would bring her 83-year-old mother home with her, if she could.

“We’re helpless because we can’t take care of her,” Corbeil said, adding her mother’s needs exceed the care the family can provide.

Her mother is one of 31 residents at Royal Rose Place who had tested positive for COVID-19, as well as 13 staff at the long-term-care home in Welland, as of Friday.

The outbreak that began July 4 has recently spread beyond the wing where her mother resides, to also infect residents elsewhere in the facility. However, 24 residents have since recovered from the virus.

Royal Rose Place is one of at least a dozen long-term-care homes in Niagara dealing with COVID-19 outbreaks, including five new outbreaks reported by Niagara Region Public Health within the past week.

Public health reported COVID-19 outbreaks at Meadows of Dorchester, River Road Retirement Residence, Chippawa Creek at Bella Care Residence, Valley Park Lodge, Chapel Heights and Millennium Trail Manor all in Niagara Falls; Linhaven Nursing Home in St. Catharines; Woodlands of Sunset in Pelham; The Grand Canal Retirement Residence in Welland and Upper Canada Lodge in Niagara-on-the-Lake.

Across Ontario there are 160 long-term-care homes with outbreaks. The number of outbreaks has tripled since June 30, with 1,289 residents and 641 staff infected.

For Corbeil, the Royal Rose Place outbreak has added to the growing frustration her family has experienced throughout the pandemic.

Corbeil said cleaning of the facility is substandard, referring to issues such as trays from the previous night’s meals not being cleaned up. Family members have taken it upon themselves to ensure her mother’s room is clean and sanitized.

Trevor Sykes, a spokesperson from Royal Rose Place parent company Jarlette Health Service, said “no concerns about the cleanliness of our home have been reported to us by Public Health Ontario and we are committed to taking immediate actions if recommendations are brought forward.”

Niagara Region Public Health, which conducts both unannounced and prearranged inspections of long-term-care homes, said in a statement that only two sanitation-related infractions at homes throughout the region were reported in the past three months, while sanitation procedures have improved at most homes during the pandemic.

Too few staff

Corbeil had only praise for the staff members who work with her mother.

There’s just not enough of them, she said.

“All the staff are good to her while they’re on duty,” Corbeil said. “They’re overworked and underpaid, especially the PSWs (personal support workers). It just drives me crazy how much work those people do.”

But she said the care her mother is receiving is falling short of expectations, as a result.

For instance, she said her mother is supposed to get a shower twice a week, but recently hadn’t been bathed for three weeks until the family complained.

Sykes said Royal Rose Place is “fully-staffed and we are proactively hiring additional team members to ensure that the high level of care our residents deserve is not compromised due to team member illness.”

While Sykes did not provide the number of staff currently working at the home, Corbeil said there is often just one or two personal support workers and a nurse for 26 residents in her mother’s wing. And if the home is fully staffed, she wonders why her mother is living in conditions she called “unacceptable.”

“How does that happen?” she asked. “They’re supposed to be taking care of her.”

Ministry of Long-Term Care spokesperson Mark Nesbitt said the province is working to resolve staff shortages, investing $4.9 billion over four years to create more than 27,000 nursing and PSW positions in long-term-care homes to meet targets of providing four hours of care per day by March 31, 2025.

That includes $673 million provided to homes this year, to hire and retain as many as 10,000 staff across Ontario, he added.

Niagara Falls MPP Wayne Gates, however, said the province is exacerbating staff shortages that predate the pandemic.

By introducing Bill 124 — legislation that capped wage increases for nurses at one per cent — he said the province is driving workers out of the profession.

“Now with inflation at eight per cent, that’s a seven per cent pay cut,” said Gates, who was recently appointed the NDP’s long-term-care critic.

“Workers are also exhausted. They feel they’re not respected and they’re doing everything they can.”

Still no AC

Gates said the comfort and quality of life is also being diminished for many long-term-care home residents, aggravated by the pandemic.

Although recent provincial legislation required homes to be upgraded to include air conditioning by early June, he said there are still several facilities in the region without it after being granted extensions.

When those homes are hit with outbreaks, he said residents are sequestered to their rooms without air conditioning, as temperatures soar to above 30 C outside.

“What happens, particularly with older people, is you end up with heat illnesses,” he said.

Gates recently spoke to a family member concerned about a loved one in a home without air conditioning.

The family member, who asked to remain anonymous concerned about possible repercussions, said the resident is now relegated to her room due to an outbreak.

“It’s just an intolerable situation where people are kept in their rooms, and they can’t go to a cooling centre,” the family member said.

Vaccines making a difference

Despite the recent increase in outbreaks, the impact of COVID-19 is far less severe than in past waves now that the majority of long-term-care home residents have received four doses of vaccine.

Nesbitt said 80.6 per cent of eligible long-term-care residents had received a fourth dose as of July 19 across Ontario.

“COVID-19 vaccines also continue to play a critical role in preventing serious illness and loss of life among long-term-care residents,” he said.

Niagara public health, too, reported fewer hospitalizations and deaths related to the outbreaks, adding the “lower numbers and the relatively smaller degree of transmission in these homes is thanks to the benefit of high vaccination among residents and staff.”

Increased community spread adding to LTC outbreaks

Nevertheless, after two and half years since the pandemic began and numerous previous outbreaks, family members are disappointed to see outbreaks again increasing.

While they suspect staff shortages are likely contributing to the spread of infections, public health said it is possible.

“Generally speaking, we know that staffing shortages can create challenges in how some outbreak control measures are implemented and adhered to,” it said.

However, public health said new COVID-19 variants and increasing spread in the community has made preventing outbreaks impossible.

“With high level of COVID-19 spreading in the community, it is impossible to keep it from spreading into these homes. Staff live in the community. Residents visit their families, and families visit residents. Infection in the community will invariably find its way into these homes, especially in the absence of vaccine requirements and masking out in the community.”

Public health said people need to do their part to prevent spread of COVID-19, to fully protect the vulnerable people in long-term-care homes.

“It is unfair to expect understaffed long-term-care homes to be able to do this on their own. We continue to strongly encourage measures such as screening, masking, and vaccination to use to help protect those in vulnerable populations.”

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